Clare Hollingworth, reporter who broke news about start of World War II, dies at 105
excerpt:
After three days on the job that August, the cub reporter landed one of the biggest journalistic scoops of the 20th century: Hitler's imminent invasion of Poland, marking the outbreak of World War II.
Hollingworth, who died on Tuesday at 105, had driven into Germany to get a better sense of the imminent danger. Without divulging the reason, she asked to borrow a diplomatic vehicle from her ex-lover, the British consul in Katowice, knowing the Union Jack on its hood would get her across the heavily restricted border.
On the return leg, she was passed by dozens of German military dispatch riders on motorcycles.
"I was driving back along a valley and there was a Hessian screen up so you couldn't look down into the valley," she told the Telegraph more than 70 years later. "Suddenly, there was a great gust of wind which blew the sacking from its moorings, and I looked into the valley and saw scores, if not hundreds, of tanks.
"So when I got back I said, 'Thank you for lending me your car.' And he said, 'Where did you go, old girl?' So I said, 'I went into Germany.' He said, 'Stop being funny.' And I said, 'What's more, I got a very good story: The tanks are already lined up for invasion of Poland.' He went upstairs and sent a top secret message to the Foreign Office."